For some reason in our society, we like to assign fault. I guess it is natural, then, for us to try to assign fault in the government shutdown. A recent poll said that about 70% of those polled believed the shutdown was the fault of the Republicans. I can't say I agree with that sentiment, but I am not going to say it is the fault of the Democrats either.
To assign fault, we first have to decide what process of assigning fault we would like to take. There are many methods of doing this and I will examine several.
Who Broke the Rules?
The first method I will examine is the process much like how we assign fault for a car accident. This is essentially to determine who broke the law. I examine this method because of the number of comments on news articles and such that claim that something is a violation of something or other.
The Congress has many jobs, but we will look at the main outline. In a world with no conflict, the bill starts in one of the two parts of congress. For simplicity, we will just say it starts in the House. Once the House passes the bill, the Senate gets to pass it. Then, it goes to the President for signing. Of course, in a world with no conflict, we would hardly need Congress. So, in reality, the bill can go back and forth numerous times with people arguing about this and that and trying to change all sorts of things. The Senate can refuse to pass what the house has passed and the president can refuse to sign what the Senate and House have both passed. The Congress can overrule the president with 2/3 majority in both houses. Furthermore, the judicial branch can step in and overthrow laws agreed on by the Congress and the President if the Supreme Court finds the law violates the Constitution, and this whole thing can take forever. Democratic republics have some major strengths as a form of government, but speed is not one of them.
The above is the basic concept of checks and balances. The idea, as you probably learned in about 2nd grade, is that the more people you have involved in a decision, the less likely they are to make a mistake. You see, our government was kind of set up by a bunch of paranoid people; they were also very intelligent and educated, but they were paranoid nonetheless. They really didn't want anyone to have very much power, and the slower the government as a whole worked, the less it could control people's lives (like they felt King George and Parliament had controlled theirs).
So now we come to the current issue. Congress passed the Affordable Care Act (ACA). President Obama signed it. The Supreme Court did not declare it in violation of the Constitution. All of that is legal. Then, we got to the start of the shutdown. At the beginning of the shutdown, the House had passed a budget. No, it was not the budget that the Democrats wanted, but Congress is not obligated to give any party what it wants (that would defeat the purpose of having a Congress in the first place). The Senate refused to pass that budget (which they are perfectly allowed to do) and President Obama likely would have not signed it either (which he is perfectly allowed to do). The Senate did send another budget back to the House (which they have not approved). Then the government shut down. The Supreme Court has not weighed in on this instance because no one has asked them to. Of course, one reason no one has asked them (apart from there being no law for them to examine) is because they know the answer would be that no one is violating the Constitution, which is about all you will (and should) get out of a Supreme Court.
Basically, the conclusion of all this is that it is rather ridiculous to try to assign fault this way in this instance. No one has done anything illegal. Well, at least on the surface. I can't exactly rule out corruption, but I frankly think that affects both parties fairly equally. It is not my experience that any trait--corruption, honesty, intelligence, stupidity, stubbornness, flexibility--is solely that of one party or the other.
Who Caused It?
So now we come to another way of assigning fault. Who did the thing that caused the shutdown? Well, the event that happened directly prior to the shutdown was that the House refused to pass the budget the Senate passed. Also, if the House had passed it, the shutdown would not have happened. So that means it is the House's (Republican's) fault, right?
Well, no. This is a logical fallacy. Two logical fallacies, actually. First we have assumed that whatever happened directly prior to something caused it, that is to say, A precedes B, therefore A causes B. This is a classic case of "post hoc ergo proctor hoc," an extremely common logical fallacy.
Second, we have assumed that because a certain action would have prevented something, not taking that action caused it, that is to say, If A not B, therefore not A then B. This is a false conclusion, because there is logically nothing preventing neither A nor B from happening (not A and not B). For instance, It is true that if the House had agreed to the Senate's budget (A), the shutdown would not have occurred (not B), but it is also true that if the house had not agreed to the budget of the Senate (not A), but the Senate agreed to the House's budget, we would also not have had the shutdown (not B). This logical fallacy is simply a fancy way of Denying the Antecedent (the "not" makes it all confusing, but the basic idea is the same).
Of course, just because that argument was a logical fallacy does not mean that the Republicans didn't cause it. There is still the possibility that the causes were all their fault. Of course, it is also possible that it was all the Democrats' fault.
Assigning cause is hard. In science, we assign cause by setting up detailed experiments with controlled variables (and even then fail to be completely conclusive much of the time). Since we can't exactly control the variables of history, we like to simply look back at events and argue about it, but unfortunately we have a hard time proving anything. I have written a lot of history essays analyzing causes of something, but the reality of the situation is these analyses (and everyone else's) are no more than an opinion. When we analyze history as recent as the shutdown, emotion colors our views a lot (of course we also have better context than the people 100 years down the road--trade offs). I feel confident that the causes are really shared between the two parties, partially based on my observations of the situation, but partially based on my observations of what is usually true in history (both sides are to blame). If we are all honest with ourselves, either side could have prevented this, both sides acted in ways that led to it, and we are in a standoff because no one is willing to give in.
Perhaps fault can be assigned by determining what caused the shutdown, but I think if you employed this route, you would find that fault falls to both sides. I think this is just fine, but it probably is not very convenient for anyone out for blood.
Who is least representing the majority of the American People?
This is really a very interesting measure of fault. Is it the minority's duty to give into the majority? Well, on a basic level, yes. I mean, if your side loses in the vote, you shouldn't challenge the other side to a duel (not that they didn't get in physical fights in early congress). However, as we discussed earlier, congress is set up so the majority has to win in two separate houses before they win the overall majority vote. This is where it gets complicated. If the House wants something the Senate does not, who is the majority? In this case, the majority of the house wants something different than the majority of the Senate. Seems a little unfair to say the Senate majority has to give into the house majority, or vice versa.
Some would say the side that wins is whatever the majority of people want, but I disagree on the basis of two aspects of governmental structure and the complicated nature of laws (and the tendency of politicians to tack on clauses that would never pass on their own).
The first aspect of the governmental structure that is important is the fact that we have representatives instead of having everyone vote on everything. This means that if a group of people is roughly divided on something but they only have one representative for them, they only get one collective vote. In several cases, the popular vote can actually be for the opposite of what happens. For instance, if there were five areas of 100 people being represented and two of them were 100% against something, but the other three were 51% for it and the representatives voted strictly with the majority of the people they represented, only 153 of the 500 people would want something, but it would pass 3 votes to 2.
This hardly seems fair, but you have to remember two things. One, our government was set up as the United States of America, but the States aspect was very important. The idea is that the states are their own entities, not just convenient divisions. Of course, the initial strong preference for that has faded and we fought a pretty bloody war about if it should stay that way, but the structure is still there. Second is that the alternative is to have the entire country vote on everything. This would mean we only make decisions once a year or so (and the ballots are extremely long), or else we are constantly having to interrupt out lives to vote. I, personally, love the fact that I get to vote, but the actual process is not really something I would like to do every day or take a whole day doing once a year. Plus, either option would be really expensive. The end result of all this is that even if a congressman is doing exactly what the people want, the majority may not win. The congressman is elected to represent the interests only of his group of people, so he or she should not be looking at the overall popular vote. Furthermore, most measurements of the popular vote are simply polls. These are not necessarily accurate measures. To get a more accurate measure, you would have to have an actual vote, which as before stated, would be a mess (and defeat the purpose of having representatives).
The second aspect of governmental structure we need to examine is the make up of the congress. The House of Representatives is set up to have representatives from each state according to the population of the state as determined by the once-a-decade census. The Senate has an equal number of representatives from each state. If you look back to about second grade, you may remember that this was the result of "the great compromise" between the big states (like Virginia) and little states (like Rhode Island). The idea was to mix the idea of a more population based system with a more state based system to partially satisfy everyone. Logically such a system will not always lead to the same result as a popular vote.
You can argue that these aspects of government should not be this way until you are blue in the face, but short of a constitutional amendment, this is the way it is. I see no reason, given this structure, that anyone in congress should feel the need to give into what a national poll says.
Now we come to the nature of laws. Laws are long and written in a language not everyone understands. There are often a lot of phrases that have a legal meaning that are beyond the average layman. Consequently, I have a strong suspicion most people in the country have not read the ACA (it is nearly 1000 pages), or very many other laws. I further suspect that several others did not understand much of it. I don't pretend to understand it all, and frankly, I am blessed to have had more education than many people.
Congressman on the other hand, are not your average layman. They have often been to law school in order to learn to read and understand just this kind of thing. Furthermore, they are chosen by their peers (us) to represent us, presumably because we trust their judgement on the topics of laws. I understand I paint an idealized picture here and often our elected officials fail to live up to our expectations, but it is truthfully our duty to try to elect individuals we believe will represent us, and if we are displeased with them we get to vote them out the next election.
There has long been a debate about what the duty of a congressman is: to do what the people he or she represents tells him or her to do to the letter, or to use his or her own intelligence, wisdom, and education to determine what would be the best course of action for the people he or she represents. I honestly think it is a bit of both, because, frankly, they can see things I cannot, but they have to respect my wishes as well. Thus, I don't think it is ever a congressman's duty to adhere to even the popular vote of the area he or she represents regardless of his or her own feelings on the subject, though the opinion of the people should always factor in.
But all the objections to popular vote aside I will now humor the idea to display how complicated even this question is. Despite the most popular the ACA has been in a while, only 38% of those polled actually like it (and 43% dislike it). In other words, no one is representing the majority in that aspect, but the republicans do have a slight edge on the democrats. On the flip side, a lot of people do want the shutdown to end. In fact, I would venture to guess the majority of people do. So in that sense, if congress is to go with the majority, they should all be rushing to end it (which neither side is). But then there is the question of what side should give in (because, lets face it, someone has to). Though I found articles that said 70% of those polled think the shutdown is the republican's fault, I was unable to find anything that indicated how many think each side should give in, and thinking something is someone's fault is not the equivalent to saying that you disagree with them. In fact, at least 13%, it seems, believe that it is the republican's fault, but don't like the ACA. Of course, that 13% (or more) could not like the ACA but want the republican's to give in. Statistics are fun, aren't they? I think they are the only way to completely lie while saying nothing but the truth.
In any case, I would be tempted to say that if asked only which side should give in, more people would say the Republicans (but I don't have any numbers to back it up), so in that sense, it should be the Republicans. Still, from the approval of the ACA, I would guess that several of those same people would say that, ideally, the republicans would win the fight to not fund it, but simply believe it won't happen and that we should just end the misery now. In that sense, perhaps it is the Democrats that should give in. Please note, however, that all of this paragraph are my own guesses and are in no way meant to be taken as anything but that.
Conclusion
Okay, I admit it, this was all just a really long post to say I think this fault finding is ridiculous. I do have an opinion on what I would like to have happen. I have an opinion on the ACA. I have an opinion on all sorts of things in this situation, but the only one I am sharing with you is simply this: To blame one side is short-sided, close-minded, and unproductive. Sure, I think everyone is being really stubborn here. No one is willing to compromise (though truthfully, there is little room for it in this situation). But on the flip side, I honestly believe that the vast majority of Congress and the President are truly doing what they think will be best for those they represent in the long-run. Perhaps I have too much faith in people, but despite the corruption of politics, I still believe a lot of them really are doing what they do because they think it is what they need to do. Are they all right? Probably not. Have they all gone about it the best way? Probably not. But that doesn't mean it does any good to call each other names and push the blame entirely on someone else's shoulders. Why can't we all view this like grownups?
